Japan, China Tout Progress on Gas Feud

Tibet was just one of the sticky topics at a summit aimed at building mutual trust between the two Asian powers.

The leaders of Japan and China touted progress towards settling a feud over energy rights in the East China Sea on Wednesday, and agreed at a summit in Tokyo that peaceful cooperation between the two Asian powers was their "only option".

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda nudged Chinese President Hu Jintao to continue dialogue with representatives of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, following unrest in Tibet that prompted protests around the world.

"I have high expectations that the dialogue will be held patiently and through that, for the situation to improve," Fukuda told a joint news conference with Hu after their talks.

Hu said China's recent talks with the Dalai Lama's representatives had been conscientious and serious and that the two sides had agreed to continue contacts.

But he urged the Dalai Lama and his supporters to show sincerity and blamed them for the unrest and trying to wreck the Beijing Olympics in August. The Dalai Lama has repeatedly rejected those accusations.

Tibet was just one of the sticky topics at a summit aimed at building trust between the two Asian powers, whose ties have long been marred by their bitter wartime past and feuding over matters from energy resources to military ambitions.

"We both believe relations between China and Japan are at a new starting point," Hu Jintao told the news conference, a day after offering a pair of pandas to Japan as a gesture of goodwill.

Fukuda, a proponent of warmer ties with Japan's neighbours, said good relations with China were vital for the region and the world. He and Hu agreed to make high-level visits regular.

EAST CHINA SEA

In a meeting otherwise dominated by broad-brush vows to cooperate, the two leaders said there had been real progress in resolving a dispute over rights to gas under the East China Sea.

"Prospects for settling the dispute are already in view and I'm happy about this," Hu said. "We have decided to continue consultations and reach an agreement as soon as possible."

Fukuda echoed the positive note, but declined to give a date for clinching a deal.

The tussle over undersea gas has come to embody their rival worries about access to limited energy resources, and it is the bilateral dispute that could most easily spark military clashes.

Despite the warm words from the leaders, each faces citizens at home who are wary of the other nation's intentions and sceptical of prospects for a lasting improvement in relations.

Hu has offered to lend Japan two pandas and is expected to play ping-pong with Fukuda during the trip, moves aimed at wooing a Japanese public worried about China's growing clout.

"Everything logical in the relationship tells you that they should improve it," said Phil Deans, a professor of international affairs at Temple University in Tokyo.

"But they are dealing with significant nationalist sentiment at home and that is something that is not rational."

The two leaders signed a joint document on future relations between the two countries, who are increasingly linked by trade and investment. China replaced the United States as Japan's biggest trade partner in 2007.

Sino-Japanese ties chilled during Junichiro Koizumi's 2001-2006 term as Japan's prime minister over his visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine, seen by critics as an offensive symbol of wartime misdeeds, but improved after he stepped down.

During Hu's visit until May 10, both sides are keen to avoid a rerun of the last state visit by a Chinese leader in 1998, when then-President Jiang Zemin delivered a series of sharp rebukes to Japan over its wartime actions, leaving both sides bitter.

BEIJING OLYMPICS

The past took a back seat to present matters this time and in a joint document on bilateral ties the two said they would "look squarely at history, to turn towards the future".

Fukuda said that Japan was praying for the success of the Beijing Olympics but that he had not yet decided whether to attend the opening ceremony in August. "If the situation permits, I will consider it positively," he said.

The two leaders also signed an agreement on global warming in which Beijing said it would take an active part in fighting climate change and would study the sectoral approach to cutting greenhouse gas emissions that Japan has championed.

Tokyo had sought Chinese backing for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, but China stated only that Beijing hoped to see Japan play a bigger role internationally.

China pressed Japan to declare again its stance on Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing says must accept reunification. Tokyo reiterated its long-standing support for "one China" that includes Taiwan.

Hu said the two governments would work together more closely to resolve a dispute over toxic Chinese dumplings that made several Japanese people ill and set off a storm of worry.